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Four guilty of Birmingham New Year murders

Four men were found guilty of murdering two teenage girls who were gunned down outside a New Year party in 2003

Four men were today found guilty of murdering two teenage girls who were gunned down outside a New Year party two years ago.

Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17, died in a hail of bullets in a drive-by shooting outside the Uniseven hairdressing salon in Aston, in the early hours of January 2 2003.

Today their killers were found guilty by a jury at Leicester Crown Court.

Marcus Ellis, 24, from Devonshire Avenue, Winson Green, Birmingham, Michael Gregory, 23, from Ryland Street, Ladywood, Birmingham, Nathan Martin, 26, from South Road, Smethwick, West Midlands and Rodrigo Simms, 20, from Whitehouse Drive, Smethwick, West Midlands, were all found guilty of murder.

Left to right: Marcus Ellis; Michael Gregory; Nathan Martin; Rodrigo Simms

The four defendants were also convicted of three counts of attempting to murder Charlene Ellis's twin sister Sophia and their friend Cheryl Shaw.

Three of the defendants, Martin, Gregory and Ellis, were also convicted of attempting to murder another partygoer, Leon Harris. Simms was cleared of the same charge.

The panel of seven women and five men were in their third day of deliberations at the end of the four-month trial.